Digital Week – November 6

In Zoë Kravitz’s stylishly derivative directorial debut, which she cowrote with E.T. Feigenbaum, several women are invited to a private island by tech billionaire Slater King and his friends—one of the women, Frida, discovers unsettling things going on, including her own friend Jess’ disappearance (but no one else remembers her being there), and the realization that Slater and his buddies aren’t benevolent. Kravitz directs with a sure hand that’s held down by her oppressive visuals and enervating storyline that’s another in the “the elites do nasty things to each other” subgenre, like “The Menu,” “Don’t Worry Darling” and “Infinity Pool.” The twisty but nonsensical ending reminds us that Rod Serling did this sort of thing far better in half-hour “Twilight Zone” episodes. The film’s hi-def transfer looks immaculate; no extras.

In this little known 1972 police drama, Chuck Connors hams it up entertainingly as William Dorn, the berserk title character whom detective Geronimo Minnelli (Vince Edwards) is urgently tracking down before he can do more damage to people and property in Los Angeles. Director Bert I. Gordon’s effectively grimy atmosphere complements the chases as well as Connors’ persuasively crazed performance, especially in his final, desperate moments. The hi-def image looks good; extras comprise a commentary by author Kier-La Janisse and retired bomb squad detective Mike Digby; isolated score; audio interview with Gordon; interviews with Gordon’s daughter Patricia and actress Cynthia MacAdams; locations featurette; and the TV cut of the film. 

Alan Rudolph has always been a hit-or-miss director—mostly miss—and he called a “loose” 1999 adaptation of a typically sardonic Kurt Vonnegut novel is an utter mess, trying and failing to replicate Vonnegut’s offbeat tonal changes while looking like an amateurish, incoherent movie that was made on the cheap. Performers as disparate as Bruce Willis, Nick Nolte, Barbara Hershey and the usually indestructible Glenne Headley are reduced to mere stick figures, while Rudolph gives a demonstration in how not to ruin solid source material. 

This personal documentary is a labor of love for director Sav Rodgers who, as a queer 12-year-old, watched Kevin Smith’s “Chasing Amy” over and over again—years later, Rodgers questions not only the film’s premise (a lesbian is “won over” by the perfect straight guy) but also his own relationship to it and how he feels now compared to when he was a confused youngster. Rodgers actually gets Smith himself to discuss “Amy’s” legacy, and they become friends; Guinevere Turner, who co-wrote and starred in the breakthrough lesbian film “Go Fish” when Smith made his film, refreshingly gives her witty take on it, while “Amy” star Joey Lauren Adams opens up more candidly than maybe even she thought. 

Donn Fendler’s account of his ordeal, at age 12 in 1939, alone on a treacherous mountain how he survived nine days alone with no food or shelter has become an inspirational if somewhat mechanical feature by director Andrew Boodhoo Kightlinger and screenwriter Luke Paradise, who adapted Fendler’s memoir. Donn’s lonely journey is effectively dramatized, and if at times it feels like an afterschool special done at a snail’s pace, the leading role are taken most persuasively by a trio of superb actors: Caitlin Fitzgerald (mother), Paul Sparks (father) and Luke David Bloom (Donn). Less helpful are new interviews with the actual participants (brother, mother, rescuer, Donn himself), integrated more crudely that necessary.

M. Night Shyamalan has mined similar territory for decades, spinning his wheels with vaguely “Twilight Zone”-ish subjects that he explores as superficially as possible, but his latest is his most actively unpleasant: a doting dad takes his teenage daughter to an arena pop concert, where he notices a large police presence that signals his possible unmasking as a serial killer. The lazy storyline makes one realizes the movie was made so the director could cast his daughter, Saleka Shyamalan, as pop icon Lady Raven, who assumes a larger role as the movie plays out. Josh Hartnett invests as much humanity as he can into an impossible role; poor Alison Pill is mercilessly wasted as his wife. Be warned: the final scene paves the way for an unwanted sequel. The UHD image looks excellent; extras include interviews and featurettes.

Jean Dujardin gives a subtly affecting performance as Pierre Girard, a writer who, after recovering from a near-fatal fall, decides to cross France, in Denis Imbert’s engrossing drama that follows Pierre as he makes the odd human connection while for the most part sticking to his plan of walking alone. Interspersing flashbacks to his previous happy-go-lucky life, falling in love with a young woman named Anna (luminous Joséphine Japy) and leading to his accident, Imbert’s film lays bare the psychology of one man—Dujardin narrates Pierre’s written-down thoughts—as well as the country he’s traveling through, all set against stunning natural landscapes ravishingly photographed by Magali Silvestre de Sacy.